1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a fluid ejecting apparatus such as an ink jet printer.
2. Related Art
An ink jet printer (hereinafter, referred to as “a printer”) is widely known as a fluid ejecting apparatus which ejects ink droplets onto a printing sheet (medium). In this kind of printer, since ink evaporates from a nozzle of a printing head, ink in the nozzle is thickened or solidified, dust is attached to the nozzle, and bubble is mixed with the ink in the nozzle, which causes an erroneous printing operation. Therefore, generally, in a printer, in addition to an ejection operation of ejecting ink to a printing sheet, a flushing operation of compulsorily ejecting ink in the nozzle to the outside is performed.
In a scanning-type printer, the flushing operation is performed by moving a printing head to an area other than a printing area. However, in a printer including a line head in which a printing head is fixed, the printing head cannot move during a flushing operation. Therefore, for example, JP-A-2005-119284 proposes a method of ejecting ink toward absorbing members provided in a surface of a sheet transporting belt.
However, in the method disclosed in JP-A-2005-119284, since the plural absorbing members are arranged at the same interval on the sheet transporting belt in accordance with the size of the printing sheet, problems arise in that ink needs to be ejected every gap between the printing sheets during the flushing operation, and in that the size or transporting speed of the printing sheet is limited. In addition, when the flushing operation is performed on a planar absorbing member, ink is scattered in the form of a mist due to a wind pressure caused by an operation of ejecting ink droplets, which may contaminate the printing sheet or the sheet transporting belt.